Greeker Homemade Yogurt
1168 days agoIf you guys have read my blog, you should know that I am attempting to make my very own yogurt using instant milk powder and previous batches of live cultured yogurt. And you should also that that attempt sort of failed. Instead of making yogurt, I think I made cheese. The layer of yogurt was so thick that it sort of separated from whey. So you get a layer of whey on the bottom and a fluffy thick layer of yogurt on the top. And god, the taste is damn sour. Yes, I can taste the yogurty flavour but the sourness is just so very overwhelming. I should have added sugar to sweeten it. And I know now the reason is that I use too much milk powder. From my previous attempt to make Sweet Greek yogurt using the Easiyo sachet of yogurt base and cultures, I estimated that I should be using about 500ml of milk powder. However, this is dead work. The 500ml mark was meant for the milk powder AND the sugar which comprise of about 30%. So I should be using about 375ml of milk powder to make 1 litre of yogurt. The 500ml of milk powder is just too much and I think that is why the “cheese-like” yogurt was formed. I am also guessing that since there is less milk in the mixture, will there be less lactic acid formed by the yogurt cultures. And with less lactic acid, does it mean that the yogurt will taste less sour? I certainly hope so.
Please take a look at the Easiyo Yogurt Base and Cultures. All these make 1kg of yogurt.
That’s 140g of Yogurt base (thus most of the contents are milk powder) to make 1kg of natural yogurt.
Now look at their flavoured yogurt. The above picture is for the Banana Flavour and you can see, it is now 240g. And it still makes 1kg of yogurt. So that means that about 100g of the base is actually flavouring! Yes, big mistake on my part there. I didn’t expect the flavouring to take over 30% of the entire yogurt base.
Anyway I have taken a few photos of the result of my attempt to make yogurt from dry milk powder.
That’s the yellowish whey on the bottom. My first attempt to make the Greek Yogurt, the level of whey is about double of what you see now. Just amazing. And the thick yogurt actually came pouring out of the container when it was fermenting in the Easiyo flask! Yes, my photo taking skills suck big time.
A more detailed look at the whey and the yogurt on top. You can check out the texture of the yogurt and see how layered and fluffy it is. I wonder what will I do with the remaining whey. Should I drink it? I heard that it is also very healthy stuff.
Looks like yogurt from the top. Smells like yogurt too. I guess some people will say that it is yogurt. However, I am not so sure what to call it. Perhaps we should call it yogeese as it is some sort of a mix between a yogurt and cheese.
Just check out how thick the stuff is! Feels a bit like ice-cream or those soft cheese you use to spread on your toast. You can see little pieces of yogurt/cheese falling off when you lift the spoon. Perhaps I should patent this idea and become rich and lazy. Add even more milk powder to the mixture and voila, thick cheese! You don’t need to waste time or money to get a cheese press either. But there should be a limit to the amount of milk powder you can add since I am sure the yogurt cultures will die if a certain concentration of milk sugar is present.
Now for the taste test. Once I get it on the bowl and at room temperature, the yogurt seemed to soften and it now looks a little more like yogurt. However, it is still thicker than the Easiyo Greek yogurt I tried previously. What is more Greek than Greek? Anyways, I have sweeten this with sugar so it is not that sour and surprisingly, it was delicious. Especially when you taste the tangy feeling of the yogurt. For that, I am glad.
What I am planning to do next is go and buy some commercial brands of yogurt and do a taste test. I am quite certain that the commercial ones don’t taste as nice as home made yogurt but we will never know unless we try it out.
